U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley answers questions at the Warren County Adminstration Building during a Feb. 20 town hall meeting. Subjects ranged from sequestration to both sides of the gun control issue.

Sen. Grassley's recent guest column "Congressional Oversight Helps Make College More Affordable," July 27, applies a confounding spin to his and his Republican colleagues' rationale for their intractable positions on student loan interest, food stamps and a host of other programs.

The reality is that Grassley and his Republican conservatives simply have chosen different beneficiaries of our taxpayer dollars - not students, and not hungry men, women and children. Their approach, unabashed and predictable, is to enrich the already rich, with the inevitable consequence of widening the divide between the haves and the have nots. Under their plans, financial institutions pocket more cash, and Big Oil and other of their corporate cronies feast at the government trough.

While Sen. Grassley is right to question tax exempt organizations' spending choices, he would do well to turn the microscope upon himself and his party.

In his column, the senator reassures us that spending public money "requires careful scrutiny to protect the integrity of hard-earned tax dollars and to ensure those dollars are used as effectively and efficiently as possible." Who could disagree? But, how about turning your rhetoric into some real action?

Here's a place to start. The Iowa Health Care Association, the lobbying organization for owners of Iowa's nursing homes and assisted living programs, receives untold, unknown sums of taxpayer Medicaid money. The association's 2011 federal tax form lists $1,327,432 in membership dues revenue, an undisclosed portion of which comes from Medicaid.

Can/will you tell us where our nursing home Medicaid dollars are going, in Iowa and throughout the nation? Shouldn't they be spent caring for our loved ones in Iowa's 430+ nursing homes, the majority of which are for-profit facilities? And, what about the American Health Care Association, their national group, with a bevy of on-staff lobbyists. Where does their funding come from?

Gov. Branstad recently vetoed legislation mandating that additional Medicaid funding be dedicated to direct caregiving in Iowa's nursing homes. In so doing, he reasoned that the nursing home industry's owners are in the best position to decide how our taxpayer dollars are spent (choosing between profit taking and caregiving). These owners, of course, are represented by the Iowa Health Care Association.

Have you spoken to the governor about your commitment to the appropriate use of Iowa's "limited resources for public services?" Maybe you just haven't had time, what with your need to keep a close eye on those tax-and-spend Democrats.